t has been a busy summer for us at OSCA and the autumn is shaping up to be pretty active as well. As you will all know any good volunteer organization depends on recruiting new people to the cause and OSCA is no different. This year at our Annual General Meeting on November 12, we will be electing a new board for the 2002-2003 year. The AGM will be held at the Firehall and you will see notices in the next issue of OSCAR. We are always on the look out for new board members and indeed members to serve on OSCA's various committees such as Special Events, Programs, OSWATCH, the Website etc. If you are interested in serving on the board, please contact the chair of the nominating committee, John Graham, at jgraham@iog.ca or 730-0092. John will be glad to let you know what is required of prospective board members. We try to get a balance of board members that represents what is a pretty diverse community.
OSCA runs a large and very popular suite of programs for people of all ages in the community from preschoolers through to adults. At the registration session a few weeks ago for the fall session rumour had it that the lineups stretched all the way from the Firehall to Bank Street! While this popularity is great, OSCA is running up to some fundamental long-term constraints with respect to access to programming space. Simply put we are having real difficulty finding suitable places to hold our programs.
The Firehall is being used to capacity and is an old building in need of renovation and expansion and other space in the community, particularly gymnasium space, is limited and not always available. The board has decided to have a special strategy session on the future of its programming activities at its October
15 meeting. Some of the issues we want to look at are future growth in the community and, therefore, the kinds of demands we may be facing, where OSCA's real strengths lie in programming and where we should be focussing our efforts and what our options are for matching future programming needs with the physical facilities we have in the community. Hopefully the session will help us to come up with some new approaches that will be better able to meet anticipated needs.
The porch sale was a great success again this year providing an opportunity for neighbours to meet each other and lots of people from outside the neighbourhood. We were also fortunate that the weather cooperated. I understand that the revenue from our levy on porch sales was up this year, which itself is indicative of lots of sales and lots of visitors to the neighbourhood. Many residents also took advantage of the opportunity not only to sell books, toys, clothes and furniture, but also home made food and drinks - and they usually sold out early! OSCA youth took a leaf out of this book and had a very successful BBQ at the Firehall that raised a couple of hundred dollars. All in all a great event and one that has now become a firmly embedded neighbourhood institution.
Our next big special event is the Fall Festival which will be held at Windsor Park on Sunday, October 20 between noon and 3 p.m. There will be games and pony rides for the kids and a BBQ for all. A great chance to come out and meet the neighbours and enjoy a relaxed afternoon - do try and make it!